


Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory

by Sholio



Series: The Epic Post-Series Road Trip of DOOM [2]
Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: 3 Sentence Ficathon, Artist Ward, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 14:52:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16997085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: For a prompt at the 3-Sentence Ficathon on DW: "what’s the point of having fuck-you money if you never say ‘fuck you’?“ Ward gets back in touch with his artist side.





	Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory

**Author's Note:**

> So I utterly failed at 3 sentences on this one. Also posted [on Tumblr](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/181128940013/for-the-three-sentence-ficathon-and-the-prompt) and [originally on DW](https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/139838.html?thread=5248062#cmt5248062).
> 
> The title refers to the 4th step in the AA 12-step program; Ward mentions it in 2x05. The fic in general is based on Joy's comment in canon that Ward used to draw when he was a kid until his dad made him stop.
> 
> This has been tweaked slightly from the version I originally posted, to move it to Hong Kong rather than Japan, so it takes place earlier in Danny and Ward's round-the-world trip.

It wasn't the first time Ward had thought about it. It wasn't even the first time, since his dad died, that he'd stood in a stationery store and stared at the sketchbooks and thought about picking one up. But then he'd remind himself that he had his hands full running Rand and there was no point in wasting time with a frivolous hobby.

(And if that little voice in his head sounded like Harold's, well, it wasn't even unusual enough to notice.)

But here he was, now, in a bookstore in Hong Kong, wandering around in vague boredom while Danny pored over comics that Ward couldn't read anyway. And there was a rack of sketchbooks, and this time, he admitted to himself -- _searching and fearless moral inventory_ , right? -- that the real reason he'd never picked it back up again was because he was afraid he'd be terrible at it. In fact, after not having drawn anything for almost 20 years, he was almost certainly terrible at it. Which would mean that Harold was right all along.

"Except you know what, Dad?" he muttered to himself, causing an elderly lady to give him a glance and move away. "You're dead and I'm not, so _fuck you._ You don't tell me what to do anymore."

He picked out a nice leatherbound sketchbook and plopped it on the counter next to Danny's alarmingly growing stack of manga. "You know we're living out of backpacks now, right?" he said when Danny came back with another pile.

"I'll read most of this tonight," was Danny's cavalier answer, which was probably true; Danny could tear through books and comics at an alarming rate no matter what language they were written in.

Danny didn't say anything at all about the sketchbook, though there was no way he could have failed to notice it, but on the way out of the store, he said casually, "I saw a place up the street that has art supplies. You know ... if you wanted to get any."

Egged on by Danny, Ward ended up with an expensive fountain pen, a box of pencils, and a small watercolor set. All of which he was probably going to be utterly abysmal at, plus he was going to have to cart this around all over Asia, wherever this road trip or whatever the hell it was took them next --

\-- and there was the Harold voice again. No, Ward thought. No, Dad, you don't get to tell me what to do. Never again.

They got a late lunch, or sort of an early dinner, from a street vendor and took it to a park overlooking the ocean. Danny sat crosslegged on the grass and read through his stack of manga (he was right, he probably _was_ going to finish it tonight) while Ward opened up his sketchbook to the first crisp, blank page. And there he froze for a long time, paralyzed by indecision and fear and the bone-deep knowledge that he was going to fuck it up, until he took his new fountain pen and in his best private-school handwriting he neatly wrote FUCK YOU, DAD across the top of the page.

And then he opened up the watercolor set, and clumsily and inexpertly began to paint the sunset.


End file.
